


Fire Flower

by deskclutter



Category: The Sandman
Genre: Funerals, Gen, Memory, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-22
Updated: 2010-06-22
Packaged: 2017-10-10 05:42:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/96217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deskclutter/pseuds/deskclutter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He who was Nada attends a funeral.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fire Flower

**Title:** Fire Flower  
**Day/Theme:** February 27 / thieves and liars  
**Series:** Sandman  
**Character/Pairing:** Nada  
**Rating:** G

On Chinese New Year, he is dressed in new clothing by his mother. Tonight, she tells him, we will go to see the firecrackers, and you can play with sparklers.

So they go outside and look into the dark, when a fire flower blossoms with a bang into the night. The children cheer and all around little cardboard boxes of pop-pop are being distributed. He opens one of them later and finds a pinch of rocky bits; too big for sand and too small for pebbles. But now he hears them pop on the ground, as loud as the firecrackers that rain down little paper pieces from above in the sky.

Someone lights candles and melts the ends of them so they stick to the ground. He is handed a grey-blue length of metal and touches the end to the flame. He should remember something about fire, he thinks. Ah, right, do not play with it, so he does not stay too close to the candles. The end of the rod flowers and he watches in fascination as the flower of sparks that blossoms on the end of it eats down the rough grey coating on the rod. When it is finished, he quickly drops it in the bucket.

The sparklers come in many different colours. Most of them like the brightest ones, which are the white sparklers, but he likes the blue ones with their smoky scent and gentle light. He holds it before him and trots into the darkness with a bobbing blue flower before him until it runs out and he is left alone to stand in the dark. He shivers slightly, but the candles are nearby and he runs back to light another sparkler.

He writes his name in the air in sparking blue, which is a good colour even though red is supposed to be lucky. He doesn't like red too much, and he tells his mother that it is too girly, so she does not buy red for him. But blue is good and the sparks fly off it too, and they frighten away the demons and the monsters of the night. Blue fire flowers, he thinks, and he knows he will be safe.

Some nights later, someone dies, and he remembers his grandfather's funeral where he threw white flowers into the grave after him. He cannot seem to find white now, but that's all right, he's found some blue ones. No one else is giving the dead man flowers to take with him on his journey, which puzzles him, but he throws the flowers and something feels right inside, which also puzzles him, but it is a dream and it does not really matter.

The next morning he wakes up and does not remember any of it, not that there was a funeral, nor that he once lived in hell for ten thousand years nor that he was once a woman because it is kinder that way.

* * *

  
Belated 新年快乐, because I was in England at the time.


End file.
